Henry Edwards.
35. Gifford Street, Kingsland Road.
[The number seven has been a subject of particular speculation with some old writers, and every department of nature, science, literature, and art has been ransacked for the purpose of discovering septenary combinations. In the Year 1502 there was printed at Leipsic a work entitled Heptalogium Virgilii Salzburgensis, in honour of the number seven. It consists of seven parts, each consisting of seven divisions. But the most curious work on the subject of numbers is the following, the contents of which, as might be expected, are quite worthy of the title: The Secrets of Numbers according to Theological, Arithmetical, Geometrical, and Harmonical Computation; drawn, for the better part, out of those Ancients, as well as Neoteriques. Pleasing to read, profitable to understande, opening themselves to the capacities of both learned and unlearned; being no other than a key to lead men to any doctrinal knowledge whatsoever. By William Ingpen, Gent. London, 1624. In chap. ix. the author has given many notable opinions from learned men, to prove the excellency of the number seven:—"First, it neither begets nor is begotten, according to the saying of Philo. Some numbers, indeed, within the compass of ten, beget, but are not begotten; and that is the unarie. Others are begotten, but beget not; as the octonarie. Only the septenarie, having a prerogative above them all, neither begetteth, nor is begotten. This is its first divinity or perfection. Secondly, this is an harmonical number, and the well and fountain of that fair and lovely Digramma, because it includeth within itself all manner of harmony. Thirdly, it is a theological number, consisting of perfection. (See Cruden.) Fourthly, because of its compositure: for it is compounded of one and six; two and five; three and four. Now, every one of these being excellent of themselves (as hath been remonstrated), how can this number be but far more excellent, consisting of them all, and participating, as it were, of all their excellent virtues."—Ed.]
ROBERT DRURY.
The credit attachable to Madagascar: or Robert Drury's Journal during fifteen Years' Captivity on that Island, has always appeared to me a subject worth a Note in your pages; but more particularly since the recent publication of Burton's Narratives from the Criminal Trials of Scotland.
In this latter work the author gives us an interesting account of the trial of Captain Green and his associates, in Edinburgh, for the murder of one Captain Drummond (a very memorable case, as it bore upon the Union of the kingdoms, at the time under discussion); and in course of his inquiries Mr. Burton has brought forth Drury's Journal to prove the existence of the said Captain Drury for many years subsequent to Green's execution for his murder!
It becomes, therefore, a serious question to ascertain whether Drury was a real or a fictitious character, and his book what it pretends to be, or the speculation of some clever writer, envious of the fame and profit derived by Defoe from the publication of a similar work. I would not take the subject out of such good hands as those of Mr. Crossley, who has evidently something to offer us thereon; but would merely observe, by way of interesting your readers generally in the matter, that Drury, by the old octavo of 1729, now before me, did not flinch from inquiry, as he announces the book for sale "by the Author, at Old Tom's Coffee House in Birchin Lane," where, he says, "I am every day to be spoken with, and where I shall be ready to gratify any Gentleman with a further Account of any Thing herein contained;
to stand the strictest Examination, or to confirm those Things which to some may seem doubtful."
"Old Tom's" is still a right good chop-house in the locality named; and it would be interesting to know if there is any contemporaneous note existing of an evening with Robert Drury there. But for the misfortune of living a century and a quarter too late, I should doubtless often have found myself in the same box with the mysterious man, with his piles of books, and his maps of Madagascar, invitingly displayed for the examination of the curious, and the satisfaction of the sceptical.